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<h3>-4000 — The beginnings of agriculture</h3>
The Almean neolithic has begun: the Wede:i along the Xengi have adopted <b><a href="Javascript:parent.al('Erel%C3%A1e_temperate_agriculture');">agriculture</a></b>. This shouldn’t be understood as a sudden revolution; it proceeded in long stages over several millennia: first, the exploitation of suitable wild crops; second, the planting of crops to supplement the results of hunting and gathering, which remained primary; finally, the reliance on agriculture as the mainstay of the diet. The change was well established by the date of this map, and villages, domesticated animals, fired pottery, and boats followed. And most significantly, neolithic techniques allowed a tenfold increase in population; the sheer number of humans skyrocketed.
<p>Almean flora and fauna are not the same as ours; my general policy has been to use the names of the closest Earth equivalents for Ereláean crops. Further information is available from the Almeopedia link above. The staple food crops were oats (<i>ba:n</i>), rye (<i>tuka</i>)<i>, </i>and<i> </i>peas (<i>yoŋ</i>); others included rutabagas, apples, grapefruit, and grapes. The chief textile crop was hemp (<i>naka</i>), while sheep and donkeys were domesticated.
<p>Dependent on agriculture ourselves, we generally expect that it’s an unalloyed benefit. In fact hunter/gatherers are often perfectly aware of the possibility of growing crops, and disdain it. They are not wrong to do so: dependent on a handful of crops, agriculturalists are less healthy than hunter/gatherers, and work harder; and crowded together, they invite the development of plagues and parasites— and social hierarchies.
<p>There must have been some impetus for this step downward in well-being; we have no direct evidence, but suspect a climatic downturn that disrupted traditional food supplies. Once some populations take to agriculture, of course, their numbers overwhelm the hunter/gatherers or induce them to adopt crop-growing as well.
<p>The agricultural area is shown in <b>solid colors</b> in the atlas, suggesting the tenfold increase in population it allows.
<img src="Atlas-race-gallery.jpg" align="right">
<h4>Human races</h4>
Most of the humans on the map are part of one racial stock, which the Verdurians call the <b>Taëse </b>(from <i>taë </i>‘ours’); they are in general darker and yellower than Caucasians, with hair ranging from brown to reddish to blond (the last is typical of the south); an epicanthic fold gives them an Asian appearance. The Verdurians divide the Taëse into four types largely by skin color:
<ul><li><i>brune</i>, their own color
<li><i>gríššue</i> or greyish, for the Eynleyni and Monkhayu; this color is due to a type of melanin not present on earth which gives a bluish cast to the skin
<li><i>čaise </i>or tea-colored, for southern Eretald, the Barbarian Plain, and Lenan
<li><i>fale </i>‘white’ for Xengiman, Skouras, and the Qaraus (though the latter are darker, almost caramel-colored)
</ul>
The rest of Ereláe is inhabited by the <b>Telise</b> (Western) race, represented here by the Ur-Westerners in the Rau savanna, who are ruddy in color, with brown to black hair, thick lips, and flat noses. (The Nanese to the north have brown skin, and the Téllinorese to the far west have a light peach color that’s close to that of terrestrial Caucasians.)
<p>For a gallery of human types, see <i><a href="Javascript:parent.al('Humans');">this Almeopedia page</a></i>.
<p>By this time most human groups have expanded to fill their appropriate climatic regions; the Taëse seem to have considered the southern taiga to be too cold, and they were also slow to populate the steppe. The Monkhayu have spread north along the shore of the Mišicama, displacing Westerners.
<h4>Languages</h4>
The colors on the map are not based on the skin color types (which we can’t project 7500 years back anyway), but on remote linguistics supergroups:
<ul><li>Eynleyni and Qarau are very likely related
<li>Wede:i and Mei are definitely related, and probably linked to Lenani-Littoral
<li>Monkhayic and Eastern can’t be convincingly be related to these
<br>
</ul>
Almost certainly the linguistic situation was much more complicated— there must have been many more unrelated families; these are simply those which survived. There must also have been widespread mixing within each climatic zone as hunter-gatherer bands interacted.
<h4>Non-humans</h4>
Around -9000 another great <b>elcari-múrtani</b> war broke out, resulting in a great strengthening of the múrtani; they took over much of Khatelyên proper, the excavations in the eastern Elkarin mountains. In the absence of human settlement, they also took over the upper Lernukh valley.
<p>On the principle that things that are the same from map to map are best removed to avoid clutter, the regions of <b>iliu settlement</b> on the continental shelf will no longer be shown.
<p>Similarly, all the non-human races are now indicated with color-coded outlines. This should not be taken to imply central administration; it merely allows the maps to focus on depicting the far more changeable human populations.
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